


Reptilian Wiles

by Havoka



Series: here be dragons [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, attempts to kiss a 30-foot lizard, read on and find out, will our hero succeed?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 17:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16391684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havoka/pseuds/Havoka
Summary: He wasn’t sure what was more bizarre – the fact that he was flirting with a dragon, or the fact that the dragon was flirting back.For McSombra Week Day 3: Myths and Monsters





	Reptilian Wiles

**Author's Note:**

> [Fan art](https://daikaiju-arts.tumblr.com/post/179394896651/a-little-fanart-for-moirakins-adorable-mcsombra)

Dragons had always been a nuisance to humanity. Big, powerful animals with the intelligence of a human and a penchant for violence to match, they were the only creatures as interested in useless valuables as humans were.

There were knights who trained their whole lives to repel the beasts. Most of them got gobbled up or burnt to a crisp in their very first dragon encounter. Others simply disappeared without a trace. There were rumors that these humans were “chosen” by the dragons – but for what, nobody had a clue.

Jesse was not a dragon hunter by trade. He saw them as more amusing than threatening. They could be so much more than they were, with their unfathomable lifespans and incredible power. Yet they spent their time fighting monkeys over shiny objects.

The one that came through town early one autumn morning was no exception. The first Jesse heard of it was its heavy wingbeats from up in the clouds. The wind howled as it sliced through the air and landed with enough force to flatten several nearby buildings. He could hear the destruction it caused before he could actually see the creature. When the smoke cleared, though, he couldn’t miss it. Massive purple wings the length of a small plane splayed outward, clearing the dust away. 

Crouching behind a half-leveled house, Jesse took in the sight before him. This dragon was easily the biggest he had ever seen. It was of a radiant amethyst shade, with onyx spikes parting its skull and trailing down its spine, and its claws, easily as long as Jesse’s forearm, were an unnatural electric blue. A single one of its forepaws was larger than Jesse’s entire body. It wouldn’t even break a sweat crushing him into the dirt.

Immediately the town’s ragtag guard force was upon the creature. They launched arrows at it from the rickety old guard tower, and foot soldiers rushed at it with their poorly-crafted swords. The dragon sneered as it lifted its tail, covered in glittering violet scales and tipped by a neon blue spade, and used it to sweep away the whole sad little battalion. Their weapons and belongings scattered to the ground. The dragon reached for something one of them had dropped. Jesse would have assumed it was a shiny sword or a piece of discarded armor – but instead it was one of the soldier’s phones, that had been carelessly tossed into a belt pouch upon word of the attack. Its screen lit up as the dragon picked it up. The creature tilted its head as it studied the screen – then it grabbed a barrel from a ruined yard, tore it open, and dropped the phone inside. Other assorted electronics soon joined the phone as the dragon stormed through town collecting them.

Jesse’s hand settled on the trusty six-gun holstered at his waist. It wouldn’t do jack against a dragon, but maybe it’d be enough to scare it off.

The dragon’s paw smashed through the roof of the local tavern Jesse frequented and came back out with one of the bar’s formerly wall-mounted holovids. It joined the phone and the other “treasures” in the hoard barrel.

Jesse laid low, but it was a useless effort – this dragon was thorough. It must have smelled him as it passed by, for it turned and stretched its long neck around the corner where Jesse was hiding. One giant violet eye fixed on him, its slitted pupil dilating as it took him in.

Backed against a literal wall with nothing else to do, Jesse tipped his head and sputtered out a “Howdy.”

The dragon turned to face him head-on, studying him with clear curiosity. Jesse reached slowly for his gun. As he moved the dragon locked on to his metal arm, glittering in the morning sunlight. “Oh, this?” He popped it off and shook it. Dirt and gunpowder sprinkled out of the beat-up old prosthetic. “You don’t want this old thing.”

As it studied his prosthetic arm Jesse unholstered his gun with his other hand. Before the dragon could catch on to his actions he popped the gun off right in its face, striking it with multiple bullets. The dragon roared and pulled back, in the process crushing another building with its gigantic hide. Jesse wasted no time attempting to retreat into the shadows, but the dragon was quicker. It grabbed him up in its claws, sending his gun tumbling to the ground, and brought him up to its gigantic maw. When he was close enough to feel its breath on his skin the dragon unleashed another thunderous roar, with accompanying bolts of electricity that made his hair stand on end. 

Up close he realized the bullets had actually made a slight impact. One of the dragon’s scales had been blown right off, leaving a mismatched dark spot between its eyes. 

“...Startin’ to think that wasn’t the best idea.” It didn’t seem likely he’d survive this encounter. He’d gotten out of a lot of scrapes in his day, but dragons were not known for their mercy. His only solace was the knowledge that there were worse ways to go than instant death by dragon.

Unfortunately, it seemed instant death was not in this dragon’s plan for Jesse. The creature grabbed him by the fabric of his serape between its teeth and then took off bounding, crushing half the town in its path. Its wings, which looked surprisingly delicate up close, stretched out on either side of its massive body and began catching the breeze around them. With a series of powerful flaps they somehow managed to lift the dragon into the air. It took off with Jesse still in its clutches. 

“Hey, uh, where we goin’?” He held tight to his hat as the wind tried to tear it off his head.

The dragon was clearly carrying him off toward the badlands, the home of most dragons.  _I’m gonna be dragon food,_ _ain’t_ _I._

“Y’know,” he tried, “if you’re lookin’ for treasure I could help you out. I know a lotta guys who deal exclusively in... _obtainin_ _’_  rare stuff.” 

The dragon ignored his words and kept flying.

“You talk?” he continued, growing increasingly desperate. “I know you dragons are a clever bunch. Bet you got a lotta interesting things to talk about.”

The dragon growled through its clenched teeth. Saliva dripped down his cape as its tongue flicked around inside its mouth.

“So I’m guessin’ that’s a no.” He mulled over what to say next. His words were all he had. “D’you understand what I’m sayin’, at least?”

The dragon huffed. With one clawed paw it grabbed him out of its mouth and then passed him to its hind claws, presumably to avoid listening to him anymore.

At this altitude there was nothing else to do but look around at the scenery. He had never seen a dragon this color before. Most were grey or black or red. Its scales were so shiny he could nearly see himself in their reflection. Upon closer inspection he noticed there was a sort of split in the creature’s scales on its underbelly, like a seam. He spent a few seconds staring at it before he realized with embarrassment what it must have been. His cheeks reddened as he averted his eyes.

The dragon, or dragoness apparently, flew him all the way into the storm clouds that covered the badlands. She flew nimbly through the storm until they reached the top of a high mountain. Lightning arced all around them, growing in intensity as they flew closer to the mountaintop, and Jesse found himself amazed the dragoness’ giant wings weren’t struck. Then a bolt of lightning hit her wing, and her body simply absorbed the shock.  _Oh._

They landed on the rocky cliff outside of a deep cave. The dragoness practically kicked him into the side of the mountain, then damn near landed on top of him. He rolled out of the way just before her foot hit the ground where he had been. She then turned and grabbed him by the back of his shirt with her teeth once again, and carried him inside the cave.

“Wait, wait,” he grunted as she dropped him to the dirt somewhere in the darkness. Sitting up, he brushed himself off and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for my, uh, ungentlemanly behavior earlier. I’m never so rough with a lady.” He lifted his hat to gaze up into the dragon’s face. “...You, uh,  _are_ a lady?”

The dragon snorted. Jesse held his hands up defensively. “Okay, okay, I give up. So you’re gonna eat me, right?”

To his surprise, the dragoness gave a curt nod. 

“Hold up,” he sputtered, “so you  _can_  understand me?”

The dragoness nodded again.

“Ya just don’t  _want_  to talk to me.”

She pulled her teeth back and snarled.

An idea dawned on him then. “Or you can understand me, but ya can’t actually speak human yerself.” He quickly realized by her reaction that that must have been the truth. As she lifted her chin and gave a mighty huff, a tiny smile formed on his lips. “I could teach ya, you know.” He backed up until his heels bumped against the cavern wall, and even still he could not fully take in the girth of the creature before him. “I speak two languages. You could open up a whole world for yerself talkin’ to humans. You could make deals with us for those electronics ya seem to like so much.”

The dragoness tilted her massive head. She wasn’t baring her teeth anymore, which Jesse viewed as promising. “I’ll teach you,” he continued, growing ever more confident, “and I’ll even show you where to find all the best loot. That sound like a good deal for not roastin’ me and eatin’ me like a shish kabob?”

The dragoness brought her snout in close to him, and showed her teeth again. This time, he realized, it was not a scowl, but appeared to be more of a smirk.

“So I’m guessin’ that’s a deal?”

The sparks from her mouth had Jesse’s skin tingling as she remained close to him, delighting in his uncertainty around her.

It seemed he’d talked himself out of yet another sure-death situation. At least for the moment.

* * *

 

“So.” Jesse sat cross-legged atop a tall rock, staring down at the dragon’s hoard of stolen electronics. The sparks from the various devices kept the cave dimly lit as they reflected off the purple, jewel-encrusted walls of the cavern. “You got a name?”

The dragoness was lying in the middle of her pile of loot. Her tail dragged slowly back and forth across the stone floor, dragging wires and broken computer parts along with it. She answered him with a belch.

“’Sat your name?”

She snorted again, sparks shooting from her nostrils as well as her mouth. It seemed almost like laughter. Did dragons have a sense of humor?

“Well okay, guess your name is Burp, then.”

This time the dragon’s laughter was unmistakable. She waved him off with a paw and barked out a roar-laugh.

“You think that’s funny, huh?” Jesse smiled, a little more confident then. “Didn’t know dragons could laugh. Guess makin’ one laugh’s better than makin’ one cry...”

The dragon stared at him with hooded eyelids.

“...Okay, okay. I’ll get serious.”

She reached a paw over to him and plucked off his hat. “Hey! What’re you doing?” She rose up from her lying position just long enough to lay it under herself. Then she crushed it under her hide. “What, you don’t think I can be serious in a Stetson?”

The dragoness blew her mighty breath over him. The sparks set his hair standing straight up. She cackled again. “I see,” was all he said.

The dragoness was clearly toying with him. He didn’t totally mind – it beat the hell out of being eaten alive.

“So,” he continued, pulling one knee in to rest an elbow on it, “you know any words at all?”

The dragon growled. 

“I’m gonna assume that means somethin’ in dragon.” He lifted his metal arm and gave her a wave. “How about ‘Hello’?”

He was answered by another electrified huff.

“Hello.”

“Raaaa.” The sound was far from a word, but it wasn’t a roar, either.

“Hellllooooo.”

The dragoness opened her mouth wide. “Rowww.”

“You gotta use yer lips and tongue, miss.” He slid cautiously down off his rock, noting how the dragon’s pupils fixed on him as he approached her and her hoard. “Like this.” He felt like a lion tamer as he reached carefully for her jowls. The dragoness didn’t need language to convey the incredulity on her face. Nevertheless, she allowed him to gingerly tug at her mouth, prying her teeth apart to reposition them for word-forming. Up so close to her he could see the glimmer in the dragon’s eyes – a clear intelligence hidden behind the beastly visage. 

“Okay, try talkin’ now,” he said, holding her giant mouth just so.

“Rhaa?”

“Hehhhhlloooo...”

“Hwreh?” Her growl that time didn’t just sound like a roar. It had something of a voice to it.

“Maybe we can try a different word.” Jesse repositioned her mouth. “How about ‘Jesse’?”

The dragoness shook her head. With her long claws she flicked Jesse away, knocking him back into the rock. “Hey! I thought you  _wanted_  to learn!”

She curled up atop her hoard and settled down facing away from Jesse. He peered around her hide to see she was poking at one of the cell phone screens that wasn’t completely demolished under her weight. 

“Well, okay. I guess I'll just be headin’ on out then.” The moment Jesse said that her head snapped up. She coiled her tail around him, blocking his exit. Jesse sighed. “So ya don’t wanna learn, ya just want me here?”

She wrinkled her nose as she beat her tail against the ground. Over the loud  _thunks_  Jesse said, “Kinda hard to tell another creature how you’re feeling without any words, huh?”

Suddenly he found himself swept out of the cave by the dragoness’ tail. She practically knocked him down the mountain – he just barely caught himself on the craggy cliff outside the cave’s mouth. Seconds later a giant boulder from within the cave rolled in front of the entrance, blocking him from getting back inside.

“Well.” He adjusted his belt indignantly. “All right, then.”

Descending the stormy mountain by himself was no easy feat, but it was not his focus. His mind was on the enigmatic creature he’d apparently pissed right off.

* * *

 

He was drinking at the tavern the next time he encountered her. The roof had just recently been patched up from her last attack, and the patrons were seemingly undeterred by the prospect of being crushed under dragon paws. Anything for a good drink, he supposed.

He was snuffing out a cigarette in a dingy ash tray when he both heard and felt the unmistakable quake. The other humans at the bar scrambled at the noise. Jesse remained in place, staring straight ahead as he took another swig of his cheap beer.

Not a moment later the door crashed off its hinges, heralding a giant purple paw. Jesse turned just in time to see a big old eye peer in the dusty window at him. “Helloooo?” The booming voice rattled the glass in his hand. “Jesse!”

The other patrons, taking cover in the far corner of the bar, all stared over at him. Jesse could only sigh in response.

The window was the next thing to be shattered. The paw reached through it and grabbed Jesse right up. He managed to lean over and put out his cigarette just before she yanked him through the now-empty window frame.

“Howdy.” He nodded cordially up at her. The dragoness sneered down at him. “Back for more lootin’?”

She nodded proudly.

“Ya didn’t get enough the last time?”

With her free paw she pointed a claw at his chest.

“Oh. You want me to help ya.” He _had_ said he could assist her in obtaining things for her hoard. “I see you’ve been puttin’ your words to good use.”

“Help me,” she hissed. The order raised Jesse’s eyebrows. “Yeah. I’ve been practicing.” The last word was mangled in her unaccustomed mouth, but Jesse got what she was trying to say.

“So you want me to help you get more electronics?” It was such a silly thing for a dragon to hoard. At least gold and jewels were shiny and visually appealing, not to mention the traditional thing dragons seemed to go for. TVs? Computers? Cell phones? What would a dragon want with any of those things? Then again she hardly seemed like a conventional dragon.

The dragoness shook her head. Then she opened her mouth and pointed to it.

“Oh. Okay.”

It was a good thing he wasn’t actually in danger, because all the townspeople did was stare as he was carried off into the sky.

* * *

 

Their original meetings had only lasted a couple of hours at most. The more recent ones began to stretch out, sometimes taking up an entire day. Once the dragoness learned how to enunciate she was a regular chatterbox. It was funny; even though Jesse taught her his languages in his usual Southern drawl, she had an accent all her own. He wondered if she’d lived near Spanish-speaking humans in the past. She picked it up well, even better than English, in fact.

During one of their lessons she really seemed to latch on to a particular word. Jesse was translating some things around them – the cave, its rocks, the light from the torches he’d set up, the shadow the dragoness cast over her hoard–

“Is that your word for me?” She must have thought he was pointing at her instead of the shadow. “’Sombra’?”

“Oh, no.” He chuckled. “I was talkin’ about your shadow. That’s the word for–”

It was too late. “I kind of like that. ‘Sombra’. Sounds like a cool dragon name, doesn’t it?”

“Well, it’s better than ‘Burp’.”

“I cast a shadow over all the land.” She fanned her wings out dramatically. “ _Sombra.”_

“Yeah. You’re just terrifyin’.”

With one swipe she knocked him off his feet.

As Sombra grew more comfortable with human language, their meetings began to change. No longer were they one-sided lessons, Jesse talking at Sombra. Curiosity filled the dragoness. She overflowed with it – she wanted to know everything about everything.

“So...” she said one day, curling her massive body around Jesse to prevent his escape, “you’ve told me all about your world. Now tell me more about _you.”_

“Me?” He waved her off. “’Fraid there ain’t much of interest about my life. I’m just a guy livin’ outside the law.”

“Why?”

“’Cause the law and I don’t always get along. In fact we usually don’t.”

“But humans live in packs, right?” She drew him in with one paw and studied him closely. “What’s your pack like?”

“Ain’t got one. I’m a loner type, mostly. Never had no family or friends.”

“No mate?”

Her question gave him pause. “...No.”

At that, Sombra cackled. “Wow, you’ve never even had a mate before?”

“Didn’t say that.”

“So you’ve mated?” She swiveled her long neck to loom her face right in his. “Do you have humanlings? Or whatever they’re called?”

Jesse couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “No kids, no.” With a glint in his eye he decided to turn the intrusive conversation back on her. “What about you? You got any little ones?”

“Does it look like I do?” She swung her tail through the wide, empty cavern. “I don’t want any. And even if I did, I can’t stand male dragons enough to get myself any.”

“What are male dragons like?” He sat down on the top of her paw as she rested on the ground, sphinx-like.

She scowled. “Awful. They land in your territory out of nowhere and act like it’s just expected you’re going to have sex with them. Thankfully female dragons are _way_ bigger than males, so we can just crush ‘em.” She stomped her free paw down in demonstration, smashing a chunk of her precious hoard to pieces.

“Does that kill ‘em?”

“Not usually. I’m not much of a killer. I just knock ‘em around a little.”

“Ever met a male ya didn’t want to crush like an old TV?”

Her tail swished again, but this time she was grinning. “Nope. Still waiting on one to disprove my expectations.”

If he didn’t know better he would have thought this building-sized creature was flirting with him. His response to that scenario, he found, was not as negative as he would have expected. It wasn’t very negative at all.

He had never been one for the nuclear American family dream, anyway...

* * *

 

It was about two months into their unusual friendship that a massive storm pushed Jesse into staying the night in Sombra’s cave. The sky was alight with electricity, the only brightness through the storm clouds all around. Rain flooded the trails down the mountain, sending cascades of mud down its slope. There was no way Jesse could have made it down in one piece – but he tried. He had made it a short stretch down when the mud sucked his boot right in and sent him plunging face-first into the muck. He scrambled to get to his feet, but his hands sank in as well. By the time he scrambled back up the mountainside he was soaked to the bone and caked in mud like some sort of bog monster.

Sombra, of course, got a laugh so big out of it that she toppled over onto her back and kicked the cave roof with her hind paws. Jesse sighed, feeling the rainy mud dribble down his forehead as he lowered his chin. “Aww, don’t worry,” Sombra said, collecting herself at last, “that’ll clean right off.”

“How am I gonna c-”

Sombra wrapped her claws around him and dragged him adamantly, yet gingerly, over to her muzzle. Before he could figure out what she was doing he was slapped with a wall of tongue. Its sandpaper texture took the mud right off, along with his hat, which he just barely caught as it flew off his head. Eventually he pulled his soaking shirt off, removed his mud-soaked shoes and his socks that were practically glued to his feet, and tossed them on a rock in the corner. Sombra drew him in again and cleaned him up with all the tenderness a 30-foot reptilian beast could manage.

As her tongue ran over his bare back he felt a shudder run through him. He also felt something else, which he remained rolled over in an attempt to hide. But Sombra was too clever.

“You smell funny,” she said.

“Well I’m covered in dragon spit.”

“It’s not that.” She gave him a thorough sniff. “Oh my God. You’re...I don’t know the word for it.”

As cool as he tried to play it, he felt his cheeks heat under her stare. He tipped his hat down over his eyes, but it was too late.

“ _Awww!_ That’s _adorable!_ ” She gave him another lick, this time right on his face. “I couldn’t mate with a tiny little human like you. I’d swallow you whole!”

“Swallow me?”

“And I don’t mean with my mouth.”

“...Right. O’course.”

“I’m flattered, though.” Sombra wrapped her tail around Jesse, picked him up and dropped him into her claws. “You _are_ pretty cute. For a human.”

He wasn’t sure what was more bizarre – the fact that he was flirting with a dragon, or the fact that the dragon was flirting back. Was it wrong? A dragon was sort of an animal, but it was as smart as a human being, with a human voice and personality. Was it wrong to be attracted to that personality when it was in the body of something so monstrous?

The dragoness licked his face again. He must have absolutely shocked her when he laid his palms on her muzzle and gave her a kiss right on her massive mouth.

“Huh? What are you trying to do?” She drew back from him. “If you wanted the scraps out of my teeth you could have just asked.”

“Scraps? No, I was–” He thought better of confessing, and cut himself off. “...Sorry.”

Sombra bopped him on the head with one claw. “If you’re hungry there are usually rats all through this cave. Humans can hunt, right?”

“Uh...yeah. We can.”

Sombra studied him with those glittering violet eyes of hers. “That’s what you wanted, right?” Her head tilted just a little to the side. “I’m still new to this human communication thing.”

“Yeah. Yes. That’s what I wanted.”

Sombra clicked her tongue. “That’s not what you wanted.” Her warm scales wrapped around him as she lay down by his side. “Was it some kind of mating ritual?”

“No.”

He could hear the electrified air sizzle from her mouth as she huffed with amusement. “Oh. Okay.”

They remained curled up together for the rest of the cold night. Sombra was suspiciously quiet. Jesse had a feeling this was not the last he would hear of his actions.

* * *

 

“So what were you doing when you put your mouth on mine?”

As he’d expected, Sombra had not stopped pestering him about it. It must have been driving her crazy living in ignorance of his intentions.

“I told you, it was nothin’.”

“It wasn’t nothing. You got all weird about it.”

Sombra was in her usual position, curled up atop her hoard. Jesse sat leaning against the spines on her back.

“I heard some dragons can take human forms,” he said, trying to change the subject.

“Yeah. Some can.”

“What about you?”

“Not me. I’m a hundred percent dragon.”

“Are these other dragons not 100% dragon?”

She tipped her head back and forth. “There’s a lot of history of weird interbreeding, humans mating with dragons and having hybrid offspring...a lot of dragons nowadays have human ancestors, and there are some totally normal-looking humans who have dragon blood in them. It’s kind of a huge mess.”

“So there are humans that fall for dragons?” He adjusted his hat to shield his eyes just a bit. “Hm. Weird.”

“Eh, I’ve seen weirder.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Like a human trying to kiss a dragon on the mouth.”

Jesse’s spine straightened. Predictably, Sombra was smirking that knowing little smirk of hers. “You think I don’t know what that is? I’ve stolen enough human media to know that’s something you guys consider a big, sappy, romantic deal.”

“So why’d you play dumb all this time then??”

She folded her claws under her chin. “I wanted to see what you’d say.”

He let out a long, slow breath. “Jesus. Guess you don’t even need to be human to have feminine wiles.”

Sombra craned her neck all the way back to where Jesse was sitting. As delicately as she could, she bumped her mouth against his. It was still almost enough to knock him over.

“So now I know the secrets of human language _and_ I have a smitten human under my claw. Soon I’ll be the most powerful creature in the world.”

“Yeah, ya really seem like the power-hungry type.”

“You never know. I’m pretty sly.”

“Can’t help but think if you were evil you’d have just eaten me right off the bat.”

“Hmm. True.” This time when she nudged her cheek against his it did not practically knock him down. She seemed to be deliberately restraining her awesome strength. “So what are we supposed to do now?”

He wasn’t sure how she expected an answer from a human whose life had been turned inside-out in a matter of months. “I don’t have a clue,” he murmured. “Might be able to take you out to dinner if we reserve the whole restaurant. Prob’ly the whole parking lot, too...”

“Yeah, let’s go out for a night on the town!” She hopped to her feet so abruptly Jesse nearly fell off her back. “We can try human food, learn new words, smash some stuff...” At the look on Jesse’s face Sombra paused. “Okay, maybe no smashing. ...A little smashing?” His headshake stopped her. “Okay, no smashing. Sorry, it’s in my blood.”

“Well, maybe next time we can go out and smash some stuff,” he said. “It’ll be like a cultural exchange.”

“Sounds good to me. I may not like male dragons, but I still have standards when it comes to mates. If you can’t at least crush a good building once in a while you’re not even worth my time.”

With that she rushed out of the cave and took off into the sky. Jesse clung to his hat with one hand and her spines with the other.

This turn of events was somehow both completely unexpected and also nothing less than what he would have expected out of his crazy life.

**Author's Note:**

> Although technically a standalone, Sombra and Jesse are featured in some other stories in this series, starting with [Crusader](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14247666/chapters/32856612).


End file.
